Holloway v. City of Milwaukee

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendants-police officials’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s section 1983 action, alleging that defendants violated various constitutional rights under circumstances where his convictions on burglary and sexual assault were ultimately vacated after DNA evidence exoneration plaintiff on charged offenses. Ct. of Appeals found that plaintiff could not proceed on claim that defendants violated his due process rights when defendants obtained tentative identification of plaintiff from one victim via photo array and then obtained 32 hours later two lineup identifications of plaintiff as culprit from same victim and another victim. While jury could find that said process of obtaining photo identification and then line-up identifications short time later could be unduly suggestive, defendants were entitled to qualified immunity, where plaintiff could not point to any controlling authority that established that such procedure was unduly suggestive. Ct. rejected plaintiff’s Brady claim that defendants failed to disclose fact that another victim in uncharged incident had identified her attacker as being heavy smoker, where such fact was neither exculpatory nor useful to plaintiff who also smoked. Ct further rejected plaintiff’s unlawful detention claim, where defendants had probable cause to arrest plaintiff on charged offenses.